5 Tasks for Pansy
by Ca3n
Summary: After Hogwarts Grimmauld Place becomes the new home of the war veterans Harry, Hermione, Pansy and Luna. Since her girlfriend Pansy never fot a 'real' education, Hermione decides to take matters into her own hands and prepares 5 questions she has to answer if she ever hopes to see her favourite panties again. gay Hermione, bi Harry& Pansy, ? Luna; Multiple POV
1. Chapter 1 POV Luna (08-16 07:22:26)

Luna regarded her reflection in the silver teaspoon, turning it in her hand and watching the image twist and contort. She winked at her reflection, then repeated the action, slower this time, and watched her eyelashes lower and the skin around her eye be pulled downward a bit by the motion. The sparkly neon-green maskara made for a nice picture, she thought. But it made her wonder: how would golden maskara look with her seaweed dress? Luna tried to imagine it. Maybe she could use painted fish tails for her earrings? She'd have to try that out first chance she got. Neville would love it, she was sure of it.

She put the spoon back into her half empty cup of coffee and pushed it around in the cup a little, she was trying to find the most esthetically pleasing position for the item. Luna didn't really like coffee, but she drank it none the less. There was something about coffee, she'd always thought. It had also been her mother's favourite beverage to accompany breakfast, and Luna preferred to drink it with her hair up, because the thought of resembling her mother gave her a sense of refined calm. And certainly the bitterness held a metaphor for growing up, somewhere beneath crushed beans and steam rising from a hot cup.

The door creaked open behind the girl who had been staring at a half empty cup sitting on the kitchen table for about three minutes now. Steps like fingernails tapping on a wooden tabletop dug imaginary ditches into the floor as the person approached. Luna was convinced that people who could wield such pointy shoes should have to get an official license for it. Not that she couldn't see the appeal behind wearable weaponry. It just didn't appeal to her, exactly.

Pansy Parkinson stopped to stand beside Luna and watched her nudge cutlery for a little with a confused, but decidedly polite expression. The two didn't speak much, even now, as they lived in the same house, but Pansy had always seemed to make an effort to respect Luna. Luna herself didn't really know what she was being respected for, but it was still nice to be treated at least mostly normally.

"Luna, you wouldn't happen to have seen where Hermione went with my helpless undergarments?"

She had indeed seen Hernione pass waving a frilly pair of, in Luna's opinion, rather untasteful black panties tied to a stick in an interesting approach to a flag. Luna had spent ten whole minutes debating whether that was a subtle statement about the significance of white flags to society and popculture today or a commentary of the deplorably sexist undergarment-on-stick industry.

"She took them to the living area. And." She pulled a piece of folded paper out of a pocket covered with black seaweed and held it out for Pansy to take.

"I am to give you this."

Pansy Parkinson took the paper from her with a frown. She gave Luna a thank-you-smile and exited the room, heading the same way her girlfriend had mere minutes ago.

Luna looked after her, and decided she could not miss Hermione's plan unfolding pointedly mercilessly. She picked up the cup and saucer, then paused, contemplating whether they would be an eyesore if she placed them in the sink. Most likely they would be, she thought. But Harry would have her behanded if she left used dishes on the kitchen table, so she settled for a compromise.

Luna set down the saucer, cup and spoon neatly on the cupboard above the sink.


	2. Chapter 2 POV Pansy

Pansy let the annoyed sneer she had been surpressing take over her features as she pushed open the door to the livingroom to find her girlfriend sitting on the couch beaming up at her. She was wearing one of those muggle shirts with a pocket in the front that was clearly meant to be tastefully too large, but ended up just making her legs look like sticks. Said legs were exposed except for an odd article of clothing she recalled Hermione telling her was called a 'hotpant' or something. Her hair flowed around her slim shoulders in that chaotic way that Pansy would never admit she found quite endearing. Hermione wore a grimace of a smile that dripped of impending doom.

Worst of all, her underwear was nowhere to be seen.

"Please just tell me the second note will lead me to where you hid my poor underwear.", Pansy sighed, presenting the note she had received from Luna. It had 5 lines on it in Hermione's tiny, loopy handwriting:

 _Welcome to the game, dear!_

 _Task1: Name one food item that is poisonous for dogs! In the fridge you will find the next note._

 _Good Luck winning back your panties3_

Pansy already knew the real objective of this little game, Hermione had been trying to force her to 'get some real science into her head' for about two years now. She just hoped this particular irksome game would be over soon.

Hermione's grin widened disconcertingly.

"Go on. Give me your answer."

She was clearly enjoying seeing her girlfriend suffer way too much. Pansy heaved another sigh and looked between the piece of paper in her hand and the grinning girl on the couch before deciding to just take a guess.

"Um. Garlic?"

The eyebrow Hermione lifted told her she had guessed wrong, unsurprisingly. The other woman shook her head in feigned disappointment that hardly concealed her glee.

"Nice try, but we don't even have garlic, so how could I have hidden the next task under that?"

Of course, it had been at least a month since Pansy had even really looked at the refrigerator, she had people who did that for her. Passing a humming Luna, she stalked back into the kitchen and started digging through the damn thing, until she found a very cold note under a small box of cut left-over onions.

Hermione sauntered into the room, giggling, followed by Luna who merely cocked her head to the side, watching Pansy quietly.

She unfolded the paper and read.

 _Yeah, I know you don't use the kitchen ;)_

 _Task 2: Tell me, what is special about a bird's bones?_

 _You'll know what to do with the bone I should be handing you right now when you figure it out._

She shuddered with disgust as a small, frail looking bone was shoved into her hands.

"What the hell, Hermione! Where did you even get that thing?", she hissed and made to drop the offending object on the kitchen tiles.

Her girlfriend took the bone out of her hand quickly and set it down on the table beside Pansy. Then she had the gall to pull up a chair and smile that demanding, anticipating smile at her, the one she always wore when she knew she'd be getting the chance to correct someone very soon.

"It's a femur."

Pansy just groaned and stood there, staring at the bone in silence for a moment.

All three of them looked up when the door opened to reveal Harry, one arm around a blond guy who looked very uncomfortable at the sight of the scene the two had just walked in on.

"Are you having a strategy meeting without me? I am hurt!", Harry exclaimed, his free hand coming up in a mocking immitation of a dramatic pose.

Pansy smiled slyly. This was her chance to get the answer without having to actually work for it. Since Harry had grown up around muggles as well, he would know this, right?

"Harry, dear, welcome home! Surely you would be able to help me out with Hermione's cruel game, yes?"

Before Hermione could finish shouting "No, don't help her, traitor!", she handed him the note.

Harry read it and looked up with his eyebrows raised slightly.

"Special about a bird's bones? I don't know, they're not solid? I mean, they have air in them, I think, so that makes them ligh- what in the world are you doing."

But he made no move to stop her, as she grabbed the bone (definitely not wincing pathetically) and smashed it on the corner of the kitchen table. It splintered, and a very satisfying crack revealed a piece of paper stuffed into the opening in the bone.

She pulled it out, letting the femur bone's remains fall to the ground, and read it's contents.


	3. Chapter 3 POV Hermione

The third note read:

 _It was pretty hard to get all the tissue off of that thing, what a waste._

 _Task 3: I understand you know a lot about flowers, but what about trees? You will find the next task between the roots of an oak tree._

In Hermione's opinion, that was actually the easiest task of the five. The tiny garden Grimmauld place had contained, except for a handfull of smaller flowering plants and herbs, only two birch trees and one oak tree, making that the easily identifiable odd one out.

But Pansy didn't know that.

And now that she was hissing a nice assortment of rather unflattering epithets, she probably would not even notice how nice Hermione was being. She did love her after all.

And she didn't fancy dying at the hands of a certain enraged Slytherin, they came up with especially horrid scenarios for other people's death compared to members of other houses, so all tasks could be solved without actually knowing the answer.

Harry watched the whole thing play out with an unreadable expression and then closed the door slowly, pulling his unknown companion, and presumably newest conquest, with him.

Pansy turned to her, and then to Luna, her eyes narrowed with an unspoken threat.

"Luna?"

She sounded like she was trying very hard indeed to keep her voice at a reasonable volume.

"Under which tree did you tell us you saw those pixies last week?"

"Why, I'm glad you're interested! It was the old oak tree.", Luna supplied with a fond smile.

"Would you show me where exactly you saw them."

What Pansy had ground out could hardly be considered a question, but Luna nodded happily and turned to lead her there anyway.

Thanks to Luna's considerable patience when it came to Pansy's moods the oak tree was located fairy quickly. Pansy circled the tree in question multiple times, shooting Hermione accusatory glances everytime she passed.

Then Pansy spotted the piece of paper she had slid in between a couple of exposed roots just hours earlier. To get it she would have to reach through a ridiculous amount of vegetation - Hermione had put a lot of thought into the placement of this note.

Then again, there was nothing really stopping Pansy from just casting a simple accio. Hermione would have even let it slide, since she'd technically already found the next task.

As Pansy grimaced and stuck her arm into the small opening between the herbs she had seen the thing through, it occured to Hermione that she was maybe, just maybe, doing this the muggle way out of respect for her.

She smiled at Pansy encouragingly as she dusted off her arm with a sneer and unfolded the paper carefully.


	4. Chapter 4 POV Harry

He closed the door and smiled at David apologetically. He probably shouldn't have brought him here, considering he lived together with no less than three other people, but as an auror you learn to be cautios. Even about letting your date take you back to their place.

Yeah, saying it like that did make the whole thing sound rather pathetic.

But he thought as the so-called savior of the wizarding world, he had earned his paranoia. You didn't just live through your entire childhood and youth in constant fear of being beaten (which he had been), emotionally scarred (which he proably was too, with his mere 19 years) or even killed (which he had definitely been) without the whole ordeal leaving a mark. Well, a psychological one in addition to the actual phyisical scar, in his case, he supposed.

God, he felt pathetic.

"I think I should leave...", David said, shooting him a weary glance.

Harry bit back the 'but it's only 7pm!' and instead bit his lip and nodded.

"Ok. I'll see you?", he said instead.

David nodded slowly, but his expression gave Harry the distinct impression he'd not see him ever again.

He walked his not-date-anymore to the door in silence and then they stood there for a moment, Harry inside, leaning against the doorframe, David on the porch, clearly wanting nothing more than to leave and return to his perfectly normal life.

A possibility Harry was honestly a little jealous of.

A litte.

But really only a little.

"So.", David murmured and it sounded like a question. How did one answer such a question?

"Um. Yeah.", Harry replied lamely and closed the door.

That went well.


	5. Chapter 5 POV Pansy

She rubbed her hand furiously over her sullied sleeve and did her best not to think of all the bugs that could be crawling over her skin without her even noticing. Her mind helpfully supplied images of those green beetles Luna made earrings from, ants, some the size of her perfectly polished nails, aphids, ticks... No. Do not think about it.

She stood, shuddering, and focused on the note she had recovered. It read:

 _I'm proud of you, brave like a Gryffindor!_

 _Task 4: I always dreamed of having you learn the names to all the models in my study. Well then, the next task can be found hidden in the fearsome jaws of a thylacoleo carnifex._

Pansy squinted at the unfamiliar words on the dirty paper. Then a thought crossed her mind. She knew not one of the names of the countless models of animals and their skeletons Hermione's office held, but she would be willing to bet a good three thirds of her inheritance they were all meticulously labeled.

Exactly three thirds, she was a very confident person.

She thus resisted the urge to hurl the note in Hermiones lovely face and rushed upstairs, nearly knocking over Harry. He called something after her that sounded very much like 'Just so you know, the one cleaning the kitchen will be you', but she didn't particularly care, now that, for the first time in this game, she felt like she could actually solve something herself.

Oh, a Slytherin's ambition.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs below her told her that the others were following and she decided to wait for them in front of the room - an audience would make her moment of triumph even more dramatic.

The evil grin that spread over Hermione's face as she saw Pansy's confident little smirk was positively terrifying.

She pushed open the door cautiously, half expecting to walk right into one of Hermione's ridiculous traps and have her hair turned yellow or the likes. That had happend before, and the aftermath had been horrible.

Pansy would not have confessed to it if someone was torturing and killing every last one of her friends in front of her, but she had actually enjoyed the temporary colour a little after Hermione had told her it made her look 'like a dragonfly with a yellow bowtie', whatever that meant. But she had said it with such an adorable grin...

However there was no trap.

In fact, it was far worse.

The study looked as it always did. Atrocious scarlet curtains with a pattern on them Pansy could never quite make out. The large, heavy desk in the centre of the room. Tables and boxes strewn all over the place in seemingly random patterns, filled to the brim with unidetifiable stuff Hermione sometimes left around the house and that Pansy made sure never to touch - for her own safety, of course, not because she feared she could destroy them on accident, which would make Hermione sad, which she did not care about.

It was on these tables that the models sat. About twenty, maybe more. All of them animals she had either never seen before or that seemed only vaguely familiar, even though she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Yes. Everything was normal.

Except that all the labels had been carefully removed from the models.

Pansy turned around slowly to face the girl giggling behind her. Hermione raised her hand, Pansy could see she was holding something now, and opened it, letting the small labels fall to the floor one by one, like the people in those 'films' she had been made to watch showcased the bullets they had stolen from their opponent.

There was a beat of silence, before a rather odd, bell like song rang out as Pansy's hexes collided with Hermione's protego.

 ***Thylacoleo carnifex, also known as the marsupial lion, (the 'marsupial' part is true, the 'lion' only describes what we think it looked like) is an extinct australian mammal that livedin the late pleistocene.** **I suggest asking google about it, most reconstructions are rather adorable in my opinion.** **[I'm using it here because it deserves attention and I'm obsessed with paleontology]**


	6. Chapter 6 POV Harry

Harry folled the noise and arrived just in time to watch Luna take a careful step back as Pansy pounced on Hermione, and then the two were on the floor, Hermione giggling convulsively and Pansy letting out strings of profanities. To his horror, her facial expression wasn't really one of hot boiling fury, but she seemed to be actually enjoying the brawl.

He got a chance to step around the two as they rolled out into the hallway, and Luna pulled him into the room before he could be knocked out by Hermione's leg which came dangerously close as he squeezed past.

"So... What happened?"

Luna handed him a dirty and a little wrinkled piece of paper and gave him time to read it, then she explained that the two had been playing one of Hermione's 'educational games' and what she had thought up for this particular task.

Next she put her finger to her lips and whispered in his ear.

"The model she is looking for is the one over there", she pointed to a little, odd beast that looked to Harry like a perverse mix of a cat and a dog, "it's the only one where she didn't remove the label."

Harry's eyes widened - Hermione had meant for this to happen? The girl really had a twisted mind.

Luna drifted seemingly effortlessly out of the room, and after a look at his friend and her girlfriend on the floor, whose fight had turned into a snogging competition by now, he followed her into the kitchen.

She had apparently expected this, as she shoved a mug of freshly made herbal tea into his hands the moment he closed the door after himself.

Luna sat down at the table across from him and waited for him to take a seat as well. He dusted off a chair - it was full of bone splinters, thanks to Pansy - and did as was expected of him.

Had he not had astounding confidence in his ability to detect it, he would have sworn Luna practiced leglimency. The knowing way she stared into his eyes gave him the creeps, honestly, but it was also kind of comforting sometimes, having someone who sat him down for an improv therapy session when he needed it without even knowing it.

The way Luna thought was intriquingly different, it always helped him to have her perspective on things. And sometimes he thought, he was actually glad she didn't have a significant other, because this way she was always available as his private confidante. Yeah, it was mean. But he couldn't help but feel like she was aware of even those most private selfish thoughts of his.

And so he answered her waiting gaze with his most recent troubles, he told her about David, how they'd met, how he had hoped it could work out this time, how David had left, without so much as asking what was going on or why Harry lived together with all these women. How he had just walked out, and back into his perfectly ordinary life Harry himself could never have.

She listened, patiently, with her chin resting on her folded hands, just clamly looking on in silence.

When he was finished she took a sip of her now luke-warm tea and asked him whether he would like a normal life better than his own.

He would have been stunned, but this was a rather normal thing for Luna to do really.

But had he been so obvious avout it? Yes, he was hurt by how easily David had turned his back on him, by how little regard he had shown for Harry's feelings. He was hurt, not because David wanted a 'normal relationship', because he'd given up on him the second he had reason to suspect Harry could not provide that. He was hurt because a 'normal realationship' was what _he_ wanted, because David did not give a damn about Harry's own craving for normalcy, and why couldn't he be normal? Why couldn't _he_ be the one walking away, instead of the one left to drown in jealousy? Why was it, that the world denied _him_ any semblence of normalcy?

Ok, maybe he had been that obvious about it.

He took a sip of his tea, inhaling the odd, earthy aroma and sighed.

"Yes.", he said. "No, I really don't know anymore."


	7. Chapter 7 POV Pansy

She spread out the labels she had won back on the floor, still panting, but in a better mood again. Hermione lay beside her, sprawling, eyes closed, her hair falling around her like a frizzy halo.

She searched them, looking for a name she just vaguely remembered, just hoping that she would recognize it if she read it.

 _Smilodon fatalis, panthera leo leo, hippopotamus minor, ..._

After she had sifted through them all at least twice, she turned to Hermione.

"Tell me the name again?"

Hermione didn't open her eyes, but she smiled and repeated: "Thylacoleo carnifex."

Pansy frowned. She was very, very sure that had not been in the pile- and then it dawned on her.

With a muttered "you b*tch!" she was on her feet and slipping back into the room to inspect the models.

It really didn't take her that long to find it, either, which made the whole thing even more frustrating.

The animal in question was a small, four legged creature with scruffy plastic fur, it had an odd build for a cat, yet looked too feline to be anything else she was familiar with. Had her tormenter been anyone other than Hermione, she would have asked what it actually was. But she was too proud for that.

Instead, she examined the thing further, especially it's so-called 'fearsome jaws', which, in this size, would make you worry about losing your fingers rather than your life.

She pried the surprisingly pliable jaws open and pulled out the expected note with her nails.

She knew Hermione didn't like to magically animate her models, but she was firm in her belief that one could never be too careful when being bitten was an option.

Other than a few indents where artifical teeth had been pressing against it, this note was clean and thankfully didn't disgust her as much as the previous one.

 _Well done, dear, only one note remaining!_

 _Task 5: Sorry, I couldn't really come up with another creative hiding place, so this one is for entertainment purposes only._

 _Your panties have been strapped to the chandelier in our room. :)_

She stared at the note. Didn't the mean she could just spell them down easily? Where was the task in that?

She got her answer when Hermione entered the room after her, halting at the door with a challenging grin. In her fingers she was twisting Pansy's wand.

That sodding liar! 'for entertainment purposes only'! She show her 'entertainment purposes only'!

Pansy didn't even make an effort to try and get back her wand as she strode past her girlfriend and down the corridor. It was wasted time.

She bounded down the stairs and threw open the door to the kitchen, deciding she did not give a damn about her disheveled hair and clothes.

"You have a ladder, Harry, yes?"

Harry turned to look at her from where he was sitting at the kitchen table and clearly had trouble keeping his amusement to himself. Luna wore a similar expression, but her's held more surprise than mocking joy.

He stood and went to lead her to the storage room.

"I do, I do."

Harry turned around in the corridor, and she thought all these years with Hermione had certainly had an impact.

"Do I want to know?"

"Hermione tied my panties to the chandelier in our room."

He stared at her, blinked once, twice. And then he burst into laughter.


	8. Chapter 8 POV Luna

Luna watched the door fall closed after Harry and Pansy and took a sip of her cooling tea. She was worried for him.

She had dealt with a similar mental battle during her years at Hogwarts and she saw the necessity of letting him solve this himself.

But how could he when he could not tell what it was that was bothering him? Yes, she would coax it out of him, so he could tell other people and that would help. Wasn't that a good idea?

Really, she didn't know herself how to deal with such conflict, her solution had always been burrying problems she couldn't solve under smaller ones.

Luna stood and crossed the room to turn off the light. It's comforting absence made it easier to control the thoughts that were flitting around her cranium like a frightended school of fish trapped in the confined space.

She could go check on the pixies again. What time was it? 9:20 pm. They would be asleep already, most likely. The falling cold and darkness of night endangered their delicate limbs.

She would go out, that was it, yes. She could go to a muggle bar, have a cup of lavender tea and chat up strangers. Could live her friend's dream for one evening and follow the spoor of ordinary people and be unknown.

She usually went out Mondays, today was Friday. Would it make a difference? Other than being the day kelpies were most likely to appear; there was little that was special about Fridays.

It shouldn't be a problem.

Luna dressed up, grabbed her coat - the one with the peacock feathers - and stepped into the cool evening air.


	9. Chapter 9 POV Hermione

Harry shook his head at the purpose intended for his poor ladder and left, paused in the hallway and then closed the door behind him.

Hermione smiled contentedly and sashayed over to the ladder Pansy was balancing on. She came to a stop where she had a good look at her girlfriend's efforts.

Pansy hissed at her that she better not do this again and Hermione made a mental note to do this again, and worse next time.

She had been watching gleefully for a good ten minutes before Pansy finally managed to tear her underwear free from the maliciously clinking chandelier.

She clambered down and stared at Hermione calculatingly, and then her expression morphed.

It twisted into a challenging smirk as her hands snaked under her black designer skirt and the beige panties she'd been wearing dropped to the floor.

She stepped out of them, never once breaking eye contact with her victim as she pulled on the recovered black pair of underwear agonizingly slowly.

"Now", Pansy purred, extending a perfectly manicured hand. "How about you give me back my wand?"

 ** _Thank you for wasting your time on this! I know the whole thing really didn't have a point to it, but I did have fun writing it and hope you enjoyed it too._**

 ** _Have a nice day :)_**

 ** _CaenCha_**


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